Chaz Mostert has finished fourth, and Bryce Fullwood 13th in Race 7 of the Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.

To say it was a frantic day would be putting it politely, as the team tackled three practice sessions, a three-part qualifying and 32-lap race in the two-day format.

The day started off positively, with both cars showing good speed across practice.

Qualifying

Chaz 4th, Bryce 11th

Qualifying started with two knock-out stages, where both cars advanced through to the Top-15 Shootout, Bryce’s first in his Supercars career.

Chaz ended up qualifying in fourth, and Bryce 11th, which put us in the fight. Chaz’s lap was on the limit and fast, while Bryce put in a very tidy lap, a great job in his first hit-out.

Race 7

Chaz 4th, Bryce 13th

Everyone held their breath on the opening lap, but we got away cleanly on both sides of the garage.

Chaz was all over the rear bar of Jamie Whincup for the opening stage, working him overtime for third, while trying to keep the tyres as cool as possible, with degradation being a huge factor in the race.

Bryce found himself in a 10-car freight train, that in the end was holding him up from showing his real pace.

Both cars opted for the longer strategy before they stopped, with the engineers opting for four-tyres, and therefore a longer stopping time, while others only changed two.

Chaz carved his way through from eighth back to fourth, closing in on Whincup and a podium every lap, but just couldn’t quite get there.

An excursion off the road at turn 1 cost Bryce about six-seconds, but he kept his head down and worked his way back through the field. He finished 0.01 behind James Courtney at the line.

Tomorrow sees two qualifying sessions that set the grid for two 32-lap races in the afternoon.

Chaz Mostert

“The Mobil 1 Appliances Online No. 25 was a little bit of hard work today through practice and qualifying, it took a little bit to dial in, but we had a big swing for the race.

“These things are really hard to wrestle off the line, but it was so good to get the 650hp to the ground and get the race underway.

“It was a bit of an uneventful race for us, we stayed out as long as we could once we saw people stopping early, and we tried to come home with some good tyres at the end.

“We had a lot of passing moves to make to get back up to fourth but the car came on well.

“A lot of work for the boys to understand all the changes we made today, I’m really grateful for those boys who put the hard work in, hopefully we can get another couple of top-five results tomorrow and keep building on the start of the year.”

Bryce Fullwood

“Really good day for me today, starting with the rookie practice session.

“We had a really good stint in the second part of qualifying, ending up in seventh, I left a little bit on the table in the shootout, but nevertheless was happy to be in there.

“The race went quite well, we had a good car, but struggled with the aero-wash while in traffic.

“I’m sure those who were watching would have seen that I got a little but excited into turn 2, locked a front and went off. We had some really good speed towards the end there, and had some fun passing some people at the end.

“Really good day here, looking forward to a couple of more races tomorrow, hopefully everyone enjoyed watching from home.”